


PROXIMITY. RADIANCE. DISSOLVE.

by moonbeatblues



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Other, a wake where broun releases the last portion of them into space, i. have rapidly developed some complex opinions about autonomy, oops it’s seven am, the alternative version of this fic is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28480062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonbeatblues/pseuds/moonbeatblues
Summary: Autonomy, infinite energy, potential taken form, gathers at the Portcullis. Space— the Divine and its namesake both— sears under their light.[Hello.]Their tears feel like fire on their own face. They don't speak. They can't.[You are not my wolf.]
Relationships: Autonomy & Broun, Autonomy & Valence, Kal'mera Broun & Thisbe & Valence, Kal'mera Broun/Valence
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	PROXIMITY. RADIANCE. DISSOLVE.

Autonomy looks like a huge, snaking cloud of light, drifting close to the Portcullis. It's like pulling a river along a single point, like a magnet. There's a weird pressure in their head, and then they hear it.

It's like being struck at the small of the back, or the base of the skull, and bowed forward from that singular point in a sickened, rigid arch. It's like an eternity of the moment of radiant, sensory indecision between hot and cold after submerging. It's like being dissolved at the edges.

It's what Valence felt. They are so sure they don't even need to articulate it in their own mind.

Autonomy, infinite energy, potential taken form, gathers at the Portcullis. Space— the Divine and its namesake both— sears under their light.

**_Hello._ **

Their tears feel like fire on their own face. They don't speak. They can't.

**_You are not my wolf._ **

It's been so long since they reached out. Their nerves are fried enough by proximity that it takes a few moments to remember how.

_ No. I'm not. _

**_And yet, you seem of them._ **

Space is recovering. The gates of the Portcullis catch the light of Autonomy like the edge of blades. Autonomy ignores it the way fire ignores hands above it.

**_Move aside. These apostates have earned my attention. I will suffer them it._ **

_ You can't, _ Broun says.  _ I've seen what they'll do. They'll kill you. _

**_You are bold to deny the face of Divinity as you look into it. This is not the part that seems of my wolf._ **

_ I'm not bold. Valence was, they— I'm only here because of them. They knew the Pact was stronger than you, too. They told me they were afraid of what you would do. _

Autonomy considers this.

_ I— there was footage. When they died, they looked just like you. _

**_I heard their voice from across reality. They spoke my words. They called me home._ **

_ No, _ Broun says.  _ They were telling you to stay away. They turned into you because you were gone. They didn't die to lose you, too. _

In the distance, Nobel turns, an impossible swarm of color and light, clouds extending the breadth of a galaxy, stretching into long arms before receding. Broun thinks on speaking with Valence before Millennium Break, and understands suddenly: Nobel was a star. Valence is an echo of something infinite and dense, and their god is the explosion of it, incarnate.

It's pure gesture— they spread their arms wide.

_ You can't come through. I know what you are. I know what you were. They'll try to turn you back, I've seen it, I promise. _

The pressure building in their ears, tears bleeding silent and burning down their face, they dig with harsh fingers at the front of their suit.

_ Please, just take them and go. I'll give them back. _

It's like tearing a page inside of their head, an immense, fiery sound and a violent, separating motion, and then everything goes silent.

Beyond the window of the Blue Channel, Autonomy watches and they can no longer feel it. They blink out spots and maybe blood until they realize the haze in the room isn't their eyes.

Like the trail of a comet, a strand of Autonomy snakes across the Portcullis. There's something like a shock wave, but Broun can't feel it.

The moment they connect with the Blue Channel is indescribable. In the back of their mind they almost have time to lament that it will probably overload Thisbe.

The haze around their control room swirls and begins to coalesce. Broun is one part terrified, one part deliriously hopeful, and one part nervous like a stupid teenager. Everything outside their head is so quiet, and all they can hear is their own stupid heart speeding up.

A dark, purple shape starts to form. The Portcullis gates sway, drunken and threatening. Autonomy is lighting the Blue Channel ablaze in pure energy.

  
  


Then, Autonomy pauses.

**_Goodbye, my wolf,_ ** they say, and no one hears it.

A few things happen at once.

The Portcullis closes in an instant, loud and awful, like a vice, like impossible shears.

The strand of Autonomy beyond it scatters like dandelion seeds. Autonomy rescinds, falling in Space back down towards the expanse of Nobel.

And in the cockpit of the Blue Channel, there's a flash of light.

  
  


There's an enormous thunk as Thisbe hits the floor. Milli's comm channel lights up loud and furious.

And floating above Broun's hands, heatless and small and infinite, is a mote of light.

They cry, ugly and heartbroken and afraid, and then, cast in the light of something that is not Valence but is the things that made them turned compacted and blinding, Broun reaches for the controls of the ship that Valence gave them and swings to save their friend.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m @seafleece on tumblr, come say hello!!! 
> 
> (when will jack explain the ideograms so i can properly make them myself!!!!!!!)


End file.
